


Or Are We Dancer?

by Chash



Series: Miss Atomic Bomb [25]
Category: The 100 (TV), Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Pokemon GO - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-25 23:15:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7550992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chash/pseuds/Chash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jon is the first to start playing Pokemon Go, because Jon is always on the cutting edge of the zeitgeist. At least according to Jon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Or Are We Dancer?

**Author's Note:**

> An anon on tumblr pointed out that Miss Atomic Bomb Pokemon Go was something that needed to happen, and this is 100% true. Also I threw in value Bellamy Blake rivalry because of who I am as a person. If you're here because I tagged this in the Neeeeeerds series, be warned: Bellamy's the only one who shows up beyond a quick name drop, and he's just here to be Alanna's gym rival. It's much more a Miss Atomic Bomb fic. If you're here for Miss Atomic Bomb and annoyed about Bellamy Blake being here, just pretend he's an OC and ignore the other quick name drops.

Jon is the first of her friends to get Pokemon Go, because, according to Jon, "I am _part of the zeitgeist_ , Alanna. My army of Pidgeys is going to destroy you."

"He has fifteen and they're all CP 10," Raoul remarks. "I only just got the app and even I know they're terrible."

"They're going to peck you to death," Jon says. "Like in Zelda when you hit the chickens enough with the sword and then suddenly there's a swarm of chickens. That's what me and my Pidgeys are."

"Just trade them for candy and evolve as many as you can," Buri says. She got the app almost as soon as Jon did, and she's already like five levels higher than him and has claimed three gyms. Alanna hasn't even gotten it yet, but she's already learning the lingo. "Pidgeys are the best to grind, they're everywhere and it only takes twelve candy to evolve them. It's a great way to level up."

"We don't know what he's doing with the Pokemon we transfer," Jon says, defensive. "I don't trust him. You're part of the problem, Buri."

"This is why you're never going to be a gym leader," Buri says. And then, excited enough that Alanna jumps, "Charmander!"

"Charmander?" asks Jon, and even Raoul pulls out his phone to try to find it.

"Not to be one of those bad articles about millennials ruinin' the world," George says, dry, from behind the bar, "but this is creepy, honestly."

"It's on your shirt," says Jon. "It's adorable."

"Just like I always dreamed." George looks at Alanna, thoughtful. "How long before you get it?"

"I don't get the appeal, honestly."

"So, a week," says George, fond, and Alanna rolls her eyes.

"Now I'm going to get it just to piss you off."

He ruffles her hair. "I expect nothing less from you."

*

It's actually Daine who convinces her, without even trying. She's in grad school now, getting more degrees, because Daine and Numair seem to have a relationship that revolves around having more degrees than the other. Alanna just finished her first year teaching history, so they get lunch together when they're both on campus, even though it's summer and neither of them actually has classes right now. It's harder to find time when they're both free, as they get older, and it's nice to have some company.

She's surprised when Daine says, "Sorry, I'm trying to catch a Ponyta," before she sits down.

"You too?" Alanna asks.

"Yes!" says Daine, and then flushes. "Sorry, that was--I got it." She smiles. "Me too what?"

"The Pokemon app."

"Oh, yes. You don't have it?"

"I don't get the appeal."

"It's been fair wonderful for us," says Daine. "Of course I got it."

"Wonderful for who?"

"The shelter, of course."

Alanna blinks. "How?"

"Oh, we asked people playing to walk dogs. And we got the shelter made a poke-stop, so folk come by just wanting to check in and see the signs saying they can take the dogs out--we've already gotten three adopted since we started."

"I had no idea."

"And it is fun," she says, flushing a little, like she's embarrassed to like it. Given Daine is a good five years younger than Jon and two years younger than Buri, Alanna doesn't think she should feel bad. "I never played the games or anything like that, but the animals are cute. Do you want to see my favorite ones?"

She looks so excited; Alanna would be a heartless monster to say no.

When she gets back to her office, she downloads the app and sets up her account. She picks a male avatar, because that's what she feels like today. Ever since she had kids, she likes taking chances to feel masculine, when she has them.

Gender is fucked up.

There is something strangely exciting about the game once she gets started, a weird thrill at seeing Squirtle on her desk, and then the other Pokemon silhouettes around her, ones she recognizes from when she and Thom were little and spent weeks trading and training Pokemon in Red and Blue. She hasn't played since then, but it's still nostalgic and fun, and she ends up wandering around campus catching her own army of Pidgeys and Rattatas, checking in at poke-stops, and being told she can't do anything with the gym until she's level five.

When she goes to the Dove at six, George takes one look at her and says, "You got that Pokemon game."

She slumps into her seat and accepts one of the twins from him. After a lifetime of being confused for Thom, she feels bad for not being able to tell her own children apart, but George can't either. She assumes at some point they'll develop real faces and personalities.

"How could you tell?"

George tweaks her nose. "You've got a guilty conscience written all over your face. And that's the kind of thing you'd be guilty about. I hear it's doin' good things for the world, though. Rikash said your brother took a walk outside in nature today, all by himself."

"He's going to have a terrible sunburn," Rikash says, voice full of fake sorrow. "I'll have to rub lotion all over his--"

"Stop," says Alanna. But then, "He went outside?"

"Explored the neighborhood. Asked me what the sun was and where it came from. I sent him to Wikipedia, of course," says Rikash.

"It's doing good for Daine's shelter too," says Alanna. Ninety percent of everything Rikash says is bullshit, but she appreciates his efforts. "They're letting people walk dogs while they catch Pokemon, it's really working out well."

"I think we need to make ourselves a stop," Rikash says. "So we can get lures up."

"That's what Daine did. You're probably right."

"The whole world's against me," George says. "Least I'm used to it." He glances at Rikash. "Whatever you want to do is fine. Put up lures, make us check-in, buy a white van and give out candy if you want. But don't expect me to buy a new phone so I can help you out."

"You should give me a raise for doing all your technology," Rikash says.

"I did. But if this Pokemon thing really takes off, I'll give you another one." He glances at Alanna, smiles. "I'm not goin' to lose you now, am I? Go off on the road, become a Pokemon master, leave me alone to raise the kids?"

"I'll be gone by tomorrow," she says. The baby in her lap protests, and she smiles. "But I'm here tonight, so give me a bottle."

*

Honestly, she doesn't get that into the game for a while. She'll go out on Pokemon-hunting trips with her friends or her brother, because it's fun and social and, like Rikash, she's honestly just proud of Thom for interacting with the outside world, but she's pretty absent about it left to her own devices. She'll check if there are any Pokemon in or near her office when she needs a break from work and get the stops when she walks around campus, but that's about it.

Until she realizes the Arcanine at the top of the gym by her office belongs to Bellamy Blake.

It doesn't bother her that someone like Buri is better at this game than she is. Buri cares more about it than Alanna does. She's plenty competitive--too competitive, often--but she hadn't had a reason to be competitive about _this_. It didn't matter to her at all.

But Blake is--well, in the month since she met him at his first staff meeting, they've seen each other about once a week, and each time have had a meaningless argument about nothing that managed to be simultaneously enraging and--a little bit--fun. People don't just pick fights with Alanna for no reason these days; it's novel, and it turns out she missed it.

The Arcanine is named Cerberus and the trainer's name is NobodysOdysseus, which is not enough evidence to prove it's Blake, given the gym is near both the history and classics department, and there are plenty of equally nerdy people who might have chosen such names. The avatar broadly resembles Blake, black hair and tan skin, but the avatar customization is minimal enough she doesn't feel as if that's _evidence_. And it's not as if AlanOfColumbus bears much resemblance to Alanna herself, unless you knew about her habit of crossdressing. So she has no way of being sure it's him.

She just has a feeling. And she trusts her own gut.

"So, how do I defeat a gym?" she asks, two nights later at the Dove.

"I've waited so long for this moment," Jon says. "How many Pidgeys do you have?"

"You aren't allowed to speak," says Buri. "Which gym? What color is it?"

"Blue. The one near my office."

"Mystics," Buri says, as if this is a long-standing feud and not an arbitrary rivalry created by a game less than two months old.

Then again, given her interest in the whole thing is also based on an arbitrary month-old rivalry, Alanna maybe shouldn't be throwing any stones.

"That means I can fight it, right?"

"Let me see your Pokemon," says Buri.

Alanna hands over her phone with only brief hesitation; her Pokemon are fine, decent CP and as evolved as they can be, but she's not nearly on Buri's level.

"You're Valor too, aren't you?" she asks, absent, and then nods with satisfaction. "Yes, good. I'll come by tomorrow. We can work together to take it down."

The nice thing about Buri is that she considers violence to be its own reward, so there are no uncomfortable questions about Alanna's motivation for trying to take the gym or anything like that. The gym exists and is held by Team Mystic; that's all Buri needs to get her in on this.

As always, George is sharper.

"So, what did this gym do to you?" he asks her in bed that night. "The one you and Buri are goin' to take over."

She thinks about it, but this is George. He knows her. "You remember that guy I told you about in the classics department?"

"The one you punched in the face?"

"By _accident_."

"Course. By accident."

"Well, I think he's the one who's got the gym now."

There's a long pause. "You don't even know?" he asks, at last.

"I don't even know if he plays the game," she admits. "But he looks like he would."

George laughs and tugs her closer in the dark. "Darlin'," he says. "I love you."

*

Buri does most of the work with actually fighting the gym; Alanna is working with her in the nominal sense that they're both there, and Alanna is attempting to do things. She's fairly useless in terms of having good enough Pokemon, but Buri seems to feel that's correctable.

"I assume you want to claim the gym too. And keep it," she adds. It feels like a trap to Alanna, but she _does_. It's her gym; she had better be the leader.

"Yeah."

"Then we have some training to do."

George, at least, thinks it's funny.

"Have you figured out if it's Professor Blake yet?" he asks.

"Not for sure," she admits. It's been two weeks, and she and maybe-Blake are trading custody of the gym every few days. Buri is usually the leader when she and Alanna take it, since she has the most powerful Pokemon, while the Mystics' most powerful Pokemon tends to come from either maybe-Blake or someone named SlytherGriffin, a blonde-haired female avatar about the same level as NobodysOdysseus. Alanna appreciates her existence, honestly; it makes her feel better about having Buri for backup. He's not beating her all by himself either.

It's not until the first week of school that he leans against her office door and says, "Alan of Columbus."

"Alanna Cooper," she says, without looking up. "It's on the door. Can you not read? That would explain some things."

"I was wondering who had time to do nothing but camp the gym. Makes sense it's you, since you're not doing anything worthwhile with your life."

Anger flashes through her. "Oh, you're one to talk, you seem to have plenty of time to--"

He's grinning, and she realizes her mistake. "Is Columbus a DC thing or something else?" he asks, conversational.

"Dove," she says.

"Dove?"

"You teach classics, shouldn't you know simple Latin words?"

"I didn't think you would," he shoots back, just as easy. There's a pause and then he says, "Alan?"

"Sometimes I go by Alan."

"Cool." He nods, and knocks on the door frame, like he's saying goodbye. "Good luck getting it back," he says, and just as abruptly as he came, he's gone.

When she pulls out her phone to look, there's a Gyarados on top of the blue gym; it's trainer is NobodysOdysseus, and its nickname is Immortals Sucks.

Alanna texts Buri to come over ASAP.

*

It's not like one of them _always_ holds the gym, especially once classes start back up and there are students everywhere. Alanna ends up allied with a bunch of random Valor students who have no idea who she is, and assumes Blake experiences the same thing with Mystic. Instinct also occasionally comes in, mostly someone named Reyezzzzz with a very powerful Jolteon nicknamed "Suck It," but that's only every few days. Mostly, the dispute feels pretty contained and person, and Alanna honestly enjoys it.

Around Halloween, Blake stops by and says, "Go to bu-pokefight on tumblr."

"Is it porn?" she asks, already opening a new tab. "All one word?"

"BU-dash-pokefight," he says. "Dot tumblr dot com. That would be the worst porn site ever. The fuck are you into, Cooper?"

"It's your site. Your kinks are your business."

The site loads, and it seems to be an actual chronicle of who has claimed the gym, with submissions and trash-talk and explanations of some of the other in-jokey Pokemon nicknames, the ones that aren't her and Blake sniping at each other. It's shockingly and disturbingly in-depth; she'd hoped she cared about this more than anyone else did, but apparently not.

"Scroll down," he says.

"It gets better?"

"Oh yeah."

It's obvious what he wanted her to see as soon as she hits it: a post with the title "NOBODYSODYSSEUS AND ALANOFCOLUMBUS CONSPIRACY THEORY," which starts, "Okay but seriously, they've GOT to be Professor Blake from Classics and Professor Cooper from History, check this out."

"We're famous on the internet," Blake observes.

"Clearly we are not giving them enough homework," she mutters.

"There's some pretty decent deductive reasoning in there. Someone who definitely took classes with both of us. They use stuff in our offices as part of their evidence, and some shit from one of my lectures."

"At least we're educational." She pulls out her phone and opens the app. "Instinct has the gym now."

He considers. "If it looks like we're trying to claim it together, it'll totally fuck with their conspiracy theories about who we are."

"And then when I take it for Team Valor--"

He rolls his eyes. "Keep dreaming, Cooper."

But he holds the door open for her as they leave the building, and it's almost companionable.

Plus, he gets the gym freed up and she claims it before he can.

"Teamwork," she says, grinning.

"Cheating," he says, and she grins wider.

*

In keeping with his traditions, Jon is not only one of the first people to get the app, but also one of the few who refuses to give it up.

"This is even worse than snapchat," George mutters, which Alanna can't agree with. Jon has put the dog filter on literally every foreign dignitary he has ever met. It's a genuine miracle they aren't embroiled in something later generations will call "The Great Snapchat Wars." Or at least "The Snapchat Incident."

"If I don't defend the White House, who will?" Jon demands.

"No one is attacking the White House," Alanna points out.

"Someone will, someday," he tells her. "And I'll be ready for them."

The current defender of the White House gym, which only still exists because Jon got Thom to hack his phone to run the game, is a 56-CP Jigglypuff named Beyoncé; Alanna thinks it would lose to a strong breeze if one somehow started playing Pokemon Go.

"Don't you have some kind of presidential duties or something?" George asks.

"This _is_ my presidential duty," Jon says.

"I can't believe you got a second term," Alanna mutters.

"It's because like the Native Americans of old, I use all parts of the zeitgeist," says Jon, because being the president doesn't mean he doesn't say stupid, insensitive shit from time to time. But they've trained him to mostly say it in private. "Not just the tender middle parts." He stands and brushes himself off. "Okay, I got my coin for the day and Beyoncé is returned to her defensive position. Dinner?"

The future, Alanna thinks, not for the first time, is a very fucked up place.

"Dinner," she agrees, and follows her husband and her best friend out of the Oval Office.

After all, Beyoncé can take care of it.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Podfic - Or Are We Dancer](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12839592) by [bienenalster (pinkspider)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkspider/pseuds/bienenalster)




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